Rest, Recuperation, and Reanimation
by Gogol
Summary: After leaving the minds of men whereto they were banished, and making their way back into the world, the Horsepersons camp out at the Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Center.


What happened at Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Center on the night of August 20th was never, in the words of the ancient scrolls, satisfactorily explained. It took the manager of the facility all of one week to clear everything up with the authorities, who (it must be assumed) found satisfaction elsewhere(1). Clearing things up with her own mind was another matter; but she kept plenty of gin in her bottom desk drawer. And bookings had doubled.

When she had gotten the last of her new clients to sign the new waiver by cajoling, bribing, threatening, and eventually begging, Mary Hodges sat back in her big leather chair, and smiled.

Then she poured herself a healthy glassful(2).

This she gazed at for perhaps thirty seconds. Then she poured herself a second. Just in case, she thought, vaguely. After all one wouldn't want to have to wait too long between refills. That was logic, that was, and Mary was good at logic.

And from her next-to-bottom desk drawer she retrieved one of the mysterious guns.

It was two bullets from full, one of which had permanently lightened Norman Wethered's wallet, and one of which had done a number on Nigel Tompkins' right knee- an extremely large number that Mary Hodges had had to write out, in pen, down to the last zero, on a _personal_ cheque. Her fingers tightened on its handle at the memory.

She took a few deep breaths, and when that failed, took a few deeper draughts.

Neither teacup held out long. She refilled both.

A pleasant pink fog began to percolate through her brain.

She weighed the gun in her hand. It was quite heavy, even half-empty. The sleek feel of the metal was unexpectedly... nice.

Really a rather silly business, she thought, with something that felt quite like philosophic calm. But there was no denying that in the past week alone, bookings _had_ doubled. And the legality had been quite a bit easier to sort out than expected. She had no reason to complain, really, not _really,_ she decided, as she took the Stairs of a Rising BAC Point two at a time towards the cloud-wreathed Summit of Enlightenment and Oneness with The Universe, or, Failing That, Your Floor.

Her ascent was unfortunately interrupted by the door of her office opening.

She looked up. The room swam in her vision.

There was someone on the other side of the door.

Possibly, it occurred to her, dinner would have been a good idea.

_There was someone on the other side of the door._

But that was ridiculous. It was past midnight, and the gates were locked, and the alarms hadn't gone off, and-

There was more objections to be made, but she didn't get any further down the list because the someone stepped into the light of her office, and Mary Hodges, the confident, successful adult, took one look at her visitor and instantly evaporated, leaving behind only little Mary "Mother of the Enemy(3)" Hodges, who no one had wanted to play with at Sabbat School because she was the kind of child who won black stars for handwriting and liver and who preferred tea to blood and who had always, in her heart of hearts, and in all sorts of other organs, too, wished she could be- well-

-well, the girl who had just strolled into her office, not to put to fine a point on it.

She was tall. She was _slinky_. Her hair fell in burnished waves over her sloping shoulders, although they were not the kind of gentle wave that you got on the shores of sunny Caribbean islands, or at least not during the tourist season: they were the kind of wave you got when you pitted two fleets of huge, creaking ships full of angry, frightened humans against each other in cold open ocean, and maybe added a little lightening and wind to spice things up.

It was not exactly hair with personality, but it certainly looked capable of personality disorders. Glamorous personality disorders.

Its owner grinned at Mary in a way that implied not only glamorous personality disorders but best-selling book deals about those personality disorders. Her eyes showed startling orange in her dark face, and, Mary saw, she was wearing a trouser suit in a way that suggested it was flattering. It wasn't, of course, trouser suits being one of the few things even bad-girl radiation cannot change the essential nature of, but that simply added insult to injury.

Mary set the teacup down. A red haze was rising before her eyes. And the worst part was, it complemented the girl's complexion _perfectly_.

"Ms. Hodges?" the girl purred. "Let me to introduce myself. My name is Cherry Vermelho."

Cherry, screamed a little voice inside. _Cherry._

She wanted to snap "How did you get in?" and "What are you doing here?" and "Get out before I call the police." She wanted to say: "Cherry Vermelho, I am not afraid of you. Your casual twisting of the rules and your artistically knotted tie-" and, yes, it was still there, even in this slightly aged version of her childhood tormentors, the _tie_ "-hold no power over me. I am a confident, successful adult, not to mention a New Woman, or I will be in about twelve hours and sixteen ounces of strong tea, and I do not quail before your smirks, or your beastly nicknames, or your gang. You can't be a day older than twenty-five to my wise and experienced forty-one. Also, I can probably get you on trespassing charges! Hah! Hahaha! Hahahahahahaha!"

She said: "Ah?"

"I saw in the _Tadfield Advertiser_ that you were looking for someone to teach gun safety to beginners," Miss Vermelho said smoothly. "I have considerable experience in the area, and I can start immediately..."

Of course.

"Of course," Mary said, pleasantly. "Could I see some credentials, please?"

Ms. Vermelho's interesting eyes (flash bloody _contacts_, the little voice fumed, inaccurately but with admirable passion) flicked to the gun, which Mary was still holding. "If I may," said Ms. Vermelho, extending a delicate hand. It was badly burnt, to Mary's surprise: in her mental image of the world, girls like Cherry had people to play with fire for them.

It might have been the surprise that made her give up the firearm, or the lingering effects of the gin and of a week that had been perplexing and expensive, not even by turns but _at the same time_; or it might have been Ms. Vermelho's stare. It didn't matter, really. The end result mattered, and it was that she put up no resistance as Ms. Vermelho coaxed the gun from her sweaty grip.

"Er," she said.

"Hm," the girl said, holding it up. By some trick of the light it almost looked as if the burns were retreating from the parts of her palm that were in contact with gunmetal.

Then she pivoted on her high heel to face the open window, sighted along the barrel, and said, casually, "So what shall I shoot?"

Mary leapt out of her chair, the thought of yet more property damage doing what no amount of long-buried vengeful urges and self-confidence could to her cringing nervous system.

"Don't shoot anything, please!"

Cherry Vermelho raised a perfect eyebrow. "I thought you wanted to see my credentials?"

Mary gaped at her.

Obviously a loony, she thought. But it was a secondary thought. It was secondary because more than anything, she was thinking that she wanted to call the bluff in the girl's lazy voice.

Cherry Vermelho had spoken in a tone that suggested she could shoot down the moon, and would, if dared. That it didn't matter, what Mary asked her to do; she could do it, and more, in ways Mary had never dreamed of. It made several parts of Mary's anatomy want to break out in in a rash.

Ms. Vermelho leaned in. "Did I misunderstand?"

Mary's lips thinned as only an ex-nun's can. She glanced out the window.

She pointed.

The girl's teeth shone like the extraordinarily sharp pins prefects wore at Saint Vladimir's(4) School for Girls. She pulled the trigger.

Mary Hodges did not hear the apple's stem break, but she saw it fall, a tiny, distant dark spot moving towards the earth, an echo of the sinking in her stomach. At her elbow, the girl muttered something that sounded quite like "Demon-made crap. It's all about shoddy mass-production these days, isn't it, no care and craftsmanship and pride about their work." Mary ignored this, because it seemed safest.

Now would be a good time to ask her to leave, she thought, very coherently. Or, better yet, to hide behind something solid, and ask her to leave.

Yes.

"You're hired," she snapped, without turning to see Ms. Vermelho's face. "You start tomorrow, at six p.m., sharp."

"Jolly good," Cherry Vermelho said.

She paused, looking strangely expectant as Mary sat back down at her enormous desk and attempted to compose herself. At last, when several minutes had passed in resentful silence and whatever she was expecting apparently did not happen, she stopped looking anything, and shrugged. Then she picked up the teacup that was still brimming with gin.

She emptied it in two swallows, and did much the same for what was left in the bottle before Mary could blink.

Mary opened her mouth. She closed her mouth. She mustered every raging brain cell against every cringing bit of facial musculature, and she glared, her hand curling into a fist.

Ms. Vermelho sighed happily in what Mary supposed was a curiously delayed reaction to the alcohol.

"I needed that," she said, licking scarlet lips.

"I _beg_ your pardon," Mary began.

But the girl was already gone.

Mary looked at her expensive office, with its wooden expression of quiet competence. It gave no hint that it knew anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

She gave it a glare, too, it and the dry china, and the little bottle. None reacted obviously, although the bottle toppled over, possibly from embarrassment. Then she went across the hall to her bedroom. She locked the door behind her, for the first time in the eleven years she'd stayed here.

It was turning out to be a dark and stormy night.

Mary Hodges went to sleep, uneasily, in her comfortable bed, and dreamed blood dreams: dreams full of hatred, and pain, and secret torments in the dark; and the heat in the air between two ancient enemies who had been forced into the same room; and spheres of paint turning, mid-flight, to lead; and in her ears the sound of thunder became the sound of every child in the dormitory tittering, in terrible unison, at the little hearts she'd innocently dotted her i's with on those older girls' helpful recommendation.

(1) Most of it in brown envelopes.  
(2) Which just about filled the teacup. Old habits die hard.  
(3) Her parents had meant well, or rather, badly; but with some names a sinister intention just won't cut it. Specify, specify, specify, that's the name of the naming game. Mary Magdalene The Adulteress Hodges, now, that would have been fine. She would even have settled for Mary Mary Quite Contrary Hodges. But no: they'd gone and blithely left it at Mary, as if people could be expected to know which one they'd had in mind.  
(4) Vladimir the Impaler, not Vladimir I of Kiev, who converted to Christianity in 988 A.D. and inadvertently began one of the first public cleanup programs by having all of Kievan Rus baptised whether they liked it or not. And again we see the importance of differentiation, although in this particular case it has to be conceded that the charming historical statuary in the front lawn rather gave it away.

The dark and stormy night transitioned smoothly into a dark and stormy day.

At Tadfield Manor, a woman sat at the front desk, awake, for some hours. She rested her boot heels on the polished mahogany, and idly flicked through papers that did not belong to her. Around eight she went out to get the mail. Most of it she set aside as insufficiently interesting, but she stopped at one letter, addressed in familiar, spidery, and, above all, _thin_ handwriting.

She grinned, and reached for a letter opener. It was somewhat startled to find itself shaped like a miniature sword, but it soon got the hang of things.

The envelope fell burning to the floor. War ignored it. It vanished, in any case, on contact.

I am coming, read the letter. To see. The letterhead used had a preprinted signature at bottom, but the name scrawled on the line above it was only one word. There was a postscript, which said, almost illegibly: Me too.

"_Jolly_ good," said War.

The letter went the way of the envelope. War sat back, rolling the letter opener between her thumb and forefinger, and flames licked her fingertips smooth.

Mary was rudely awakened by a rapping at her door.

"Wstfgl," she said.

The rapping continued.

"Hnnngh," she said, raising her head a bare inch from the pillow.

The rapping intensified.

"Mrf," she said, covering her eyes.

The rapping repeated itself.

Mary gave up. "I'll be right out," she called, and rose, like Atlantis from the deeps, if Atlantis had been a truly extraordinary case of bedhead and the deeps, for that matter, had been manufactured(1) from Egyptian cotton.

A few minutes later she was vertical, still breathing, and fully clothed. This was less impressive when you took into account that she'd slept in them, but she still felt vaguely proud.

Riding the resultant tiny wave of endorphins, she opened the door.

The endorphins made a surreptitious exit. The hangover entered stage left, spotlighted, with lurking rage not far behind.

"Oh," said Mary. "You."

Cherry Velasco glittered in the hideously bright sunlight filling the hallway. "Good morning," she said, in a voice like shells exploding in distant trenches. Mary would not have been comforted to know that this likeness was more than just a side effect of aforementioned hangover.

"What do you want?"

"I thought you'd like to know that a corporate head just called about the possibility of hiring you to train his latest crop of managers."

Mary gripped the doorframe and gave a brief prayer of thanks(2) that she had decided not to put her high heels on, even if it did mean that Ms. Velasco loomed over her.

"Tell the secretary to deal with it," she said.

"What secretary?" said Ms. Velasco. She wiped a spot of something off her chin as she said it.

"Miss... Smith?" said Mary, feeling hope wane.

"Oh. Platinum blonde, wears a trenchcoat?"

"Yes," said Mary, who had wondered about that herself, but wasn't about to admit it to _this_ woman.

"Oh, her. She... left," said Ms. Velasco.

"Eh?"

"Her resignation letter is on the front table," she said, apparently as an afterthought(3).

"Bother," said Mary. "Who took the call, then?"

"Me."

"What did you tell him?"

"That you'd be happy to see him in..." Ms. Velasco checked her watch. "Seven minutes."

Mary blessed.

"Who is it?" she demanded. "You did get his name, at least?"

"Yes, I did," said Ms. Velasco, pleasantly. "His name is Dr. Raven Sable. Head of Burger Lord," she clarified, completely unnecessarily.

Mary whimpered. "But," she said.

"Yes," agreed Cherry Velasco. "I suggest you hurry."

(1) In China.  
(2) To Beelzebub, whose special domain is gluttony and mornings after: if old habits die hard, old habits you acquired under the instruction of huge nuns armed with inverted crosses died harder. This is also true of certain species of vampire, but vampires, for better or for worse, don't come into this story.  
(3) Which was true. It went like this: oh god oh god HELP MEeeEe (illegible scribbling). It had been done in rather tacky brown ink of some kind. Platinum blondes, Mary would think, sadly, as she read it. They just aren't like the rest of us(4).  
(4) Cherry Velasco would have agreed, had she been asked. They were tastier, for one.

It would be nice to think that Miss Smith was, in fact, the sort of person who would use tasteless brown ink even if she wasn't currently at a loss for materials aside from her own viscera, and that she kicked dogs when she passed them, and swished around like a trenchcoat made her better than, say, the kind of person who wears a trouser suit. It would nice to think that because of her death, good spread throughout the world, as this poodle-owner went on with an unmolested poodle, and this old school friend of hers did not receive a card with corrosive glitter dripping out of it, and that harassed mother escaped a nasty case of coiffure-envy, all of it multiplied and passed on to the next person, and the next.

No one really needs to know about the visits to the elderly or the fondness for flowers, anyhow. Right? Right.

"Good morning."

"Good afternoon," replied Dr. Raven Sable, with a thin smile. He was a tall man, and almost painfully slim. Mary, who had once been a nurse for a reason, suppressed the urge to cluck over the hand he offered her, which most closely resembled some kind of spider, possibly one whose best friends were flies. His grip was extremely firm, though, and he looked her straight in the eye.

As if on cue, her stomach growled.

She winced. "Oh," she said, "yes, of course, sorry, how the time does get away from me. Please, sit down."

He sat. She sat. Cherry Velasco lounged against the wall, examining her nails.

"So," she said, brightly, "I understand you're interested in training some managers."

"Absolutely," said Dr. Raven Sable. "I think you're doing amazing work. I've seen the studies, of course, everyone has, but really, it's extraordinary how much you've accomplished, revolutionary stuff, you know."

"Ah," said Mary, bemusedly, "you're too kind. Ah. Studies?"

"Have there not been studies yet?" he said, smoothly. "Well, there will be. _Soon._ Really groundbreaking, your processes. They simply must be brought to the attention of the public."

"Well, I try to keep this service selective-" she tried.

"Of course, of course. When I say public, I mean the _public_," he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the edge of her desk. His shadow stretched longer than seemed quite natural, but she didn't mind; it blocked out some of the painful light that seemed to be filtering through the window and the rain specifically to stab at the back of her eyes.

"Oh," she said, wisely. "The _public._"

He nodded. "The public," he said. His voice seemed to have dropped an octave in pitch.

She wondered what he was talking about. She thought, wistfully, of lunch.

Behind them, Ms. Velasco made a noise that would have been a snort coming from a less infuriatingly attractive woman.

Dr. Raven Sable cast her an annoyed look. There was an odd snapping sensation, as of a rubber band shot into the back of the head. Mary shook hers, trying to rid it of the feeling that it was full of wool, or, failing that, to make her eyes stop seeing things that couldn't possibly be there. Burns peeking above Dr. Sable's high collar, for instance, and something awful and starved crouched inside Dr. Sable's deliberate spareness.

Happily, before she could follow this thought she was diverted by the need to apologize for Ms. Velasco's rudeness.

"This is the resident gun safety expert," she said, aiming for a dry tone and achieving, well, only moderately moist, anyway. "Ms. Cherry Velasco? Dr. Raven Sable. Dr. Raven Sable, Ms. Cherry Velasco."

"We've met," said Ms. Velasco, her orange eyes dancing.

"On the phone," he said calmly. "Yes. We conversed. How nice to meet you."

"It's been a long time," said Ms. Velasco, ignoring this. "Well. Before you know what, it'd been a long time, anyway."

Sable hesitated, then shrugged.

"Not since Majorca, I think you said? Although there was that little incident in Wal-Mart."

"Yes, yes, but there was barely time to say hello."

Mary shifted awkwardly in her seat. Obviously a history between these two, she was thinking. Typical. He would be her type. And while she thought it, her mind glided gently over the question of Ms. Velasco's qualifications and recommendations, for the second time.

In her defense, it was a really remarkably bad hangover.

"Still," said Dr. Sable, vaguely. He looked meaningfully at Mary. Mary stared at her lap.

"Sorry," said Ms. Velasco, not sounding very sorry. "I'm interrupting your meeting, I know. Go on, do."

"Thank you," said Mary.

"Any time, old girl," said Ms. Velasco, winking.

Mary attempted a quelling glance. Dr. Sable had a sudden coughing fit into his arm.

"Well," she said, "moving on, would you like to make an appointment now, Dr. Sable? How many people did you have in mind?"

"For the first session," he said, stroking his trimmed little beard- and at the words a little shiver of delight ran down Mary's spine, where it felt curiously similar to the liquid gurgle of an empty stomach, but never mind that, because first meant _multiple_, and multiple meant _recouping her losses_, and soon she wouldn't have to misapply calculus to make the investors keep forking it over, even!- "I thought about thirty."

"Perfect," she said. "And the date?"

"When's the soonest that you're free, Ms. Hodges?"

She examined her calendar. There were a few blank spots that she didn't remember as being blank, but that was obviously unimportant. "Why, er, just this weekend," she said, "it looks like."

"How fortuitous," said Dr. Sable. "By all means, make it this weekend."

Mary wrote it down. Her hand was shaking; it was a toss-up as to whether that was the low blood sugar or the greed talking, but either way it rather ruined her normally excellent penmanship, and somehow the words "Raven Sable" ran together into something that looked quite different. There was no way she could mistake it for a personal reminder, though, so that was all right.

"There," she said, triumphantly.

"I'm afraid I have another appointment," he said, "but my lawyers will be over later this afternoon to complete the necessary paperwork, of course, and I will discuss further details with you by dread portal."

"_Telephone_," hissed Ms. Velasco, urgently.

"Phone, that is, pardon my cough," said Dr. Sable. "Will that be satisfactory?"

"More than," said Mary, absently; her mental energies were mostly occupied wiping out the dread portal bit, because some things just do not come out of the mouths of successful businessmen.

"It's been a pleasure doing business with you," said Dr. Sable.

"The pleasure is all mine," she said.

He stood, and nodded to her. At least, it might reasonably have been to her, even if she suspected deep in the dark dank tea-cupboard depths of her soul that it had been to Ms. Velasco. "Good afternoon," he said.

"Good day," Mary said, for safety's sake.

He paused at the doorway on his way out. "Guns," he said, thoughtfully. "Groundbreaking, of course. But I was wondering..."

Oh, _no_, Mary thought. Here it comes. And it'd all been going so well.

"Yes?" she said, resignedly.

"Are you thinking of branching out?" he said.

Ms. Velasco's head snapped up, with a sound like the report of a musket. Mary blinked.

"Pardon?" she said.

He spread his slender hands. "Survival," he said, "testing the will, that's what it's all about, really. Have you considered other methods, besides combat? Imagine the possibilities involved in, oh, say, other kinds of tense, difficult situations."

"I'm not sure I understand you," said Mary.

"Well," he said, "what about a- oh, I don't know- just for example, a training scenario where the managers would go without, say, eating for a few days? Or without being fed, in any case. Picture it: teams of managers, wandering through these marvelous woods you have, foraging for their dinners!"

Mary pictured the paperwork. It grinned at her.

Then again, so did Sable, his dark gray eyes warm with enthusiasm. Head of Burger Lord, she forced herself to think. Only the biggest fast-food chain in the world. _Multiple sessions._

"It's certainly something to consider," she managed.

Ms. Velasco growled.

"I would never ask you to make such a decision on the spot," Sable promised. "By all means, consider. We can expand and refine soon enough!"

With that magnanimous acknowledgment he turned his pinstriped back on her and strode out.

Ms. Velasco growled louder, and pushed off the wall to pace back and forth across the small space. Mary, by contrast, slumped forward until her forehead was resting on the calendar's cheerful cover, from which an adorable hellpuppy leered glossily up at her(1). She groaned.

"And I was so happy that I had finished all the legal details for just _shooting people_," she said, more or less to herself.

"He's a right bastard," replied Ms. Velasco. "Huh. That's infringement, that is. I was here first!"

Mary, who wasn't really listening as closely as she should have been, continued in the privacy of her own head. She was thinking: And what I'll do with a hoard of ravenous professionals after the thing's done, I'm sure I don't know.

"One must give him points for style, though, I suppose," said Ms. Velasco.

Maybe a pump of some kind, Mary thought.

"He always was the creative one. Never content to just do his job, no. He has to get inventive about it."

If she could just get her hands on the porridge they'd served at St. Vladimir's on Saturday mornings; _that_ would fill them right up again.

"Burger Lord," Ms. Velasco said, in an exaggeratedly high voice. "MEALS(tm)! And does he think about starving African children, like a proper personification? Hah!"

"Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Center donates ten percent of its income(2) annually to UNICEF, in the spirit of global consciousness and community," Mary said, automatically.

whirled around. Their eyes met.

Abruptly, Ms. Velasco began to laugh.

"Well," she said. "Well. He'll like that. _Yeah._ I suppose it could always be worse."

Mary said, irrelevantly, "I could murder a curry."

"Yeah?" said Ms. Velasco. "I tell you what, I'll take you out to lunch."

Mary felt a twinge of uneasiness.

"You don't have to-"

"I insist," said Ms. Velasco, hauling Mary up by the elbow and setting her on her feet. "After all," she said, "after all, I like this job so much already. It's only fair. Don't you think?"

"Ah," said Mary, wobbling, "yes, I suppose." And to her own surprise, she rather did.

(1) The only things in Tadfield Manor that survived the fire, aside from the foundations, were the hideous office supplies. This is true of all fires set for the purpose of destroying important paper records, though, and should not be regarded as indicative of any particular occult significance.  
(2) 'Income' in this case defined as how much Ms. Mary Hodges spent on sweets for a given Halloween(3).  
(3) Although given the nature of Lower Tadfield Halloweens, this should not be held against her. Neither shoulder her tendency to look out through the window first and take a few moments to brace herself before answering the door- some children's costumes were just frightfully realistic, in these parts; sometimes one might almost think one's candy bowl was being threatened by four pirates brought alive straight from the pages of _Treasure Island_. Brought alive, and shortened dramatically.

In the parking lot, she caught a glimpse of something pale, moving through the dense veil of rain, but Ms. Velasco was dragging her along. The three drivethrough fights(1) that subsequently broke out at the curry place drove it clean out of her mind.

She thought of it again again two days later, though, when after the lawyers had come and gone and come again(2), and Sable had left a series of increasingly expansive messages on her ansaphone (one of which was just a list of the effects of hunger on the central cortex, reeled off with enormous enjoyment) the management teams arrived, five minutes early to a man. The big, shiny, company cars soon filled up the lot.

Mary lingered after Ms. Velasco had herded the trainees inside, taking the opportunity to feel sunshine on her skin. It was a nice day. They didn't really need her in there.

That was when something moved. Palely.

She stared at the empty lot.

"Hallo?" she called.

It was quiet, except for the breeze in the yellowing leaves above, and- Mary frowned. Dripping?

She listened.

Yes, definitely dripping.

She followed the sound to its source, which turned out to be a leak in one of the cars. There was petrol dripping from under it, and the puddle of petrol on the tarmac was already so large as to qualify as a pud. Mary frowned at it. The Conference Center couldn't be held liable for this, but it might still be unpleasant explaining that to the owner: the owners of cars like these had exactly one way of not hearing what they didn't want to hear, and that was shouting.

She knelt down for a better look.

"Isn't it lovely?" said a voice to her left.

Mary Hodges turned, slowly.

There was a young man lying on his side mere inches from her shoe. At first glance he looked like he'd been the victim of one of those unoriginal practical jokes that involve nothing more complex than large quantities of chalk and decent timing, but, it quickly dawned on Mary, he hadn't. The horrible graininess was simply what his skin looked like.

"Who are you?" she said.

"My name is Ossie White," he said.

"Are you here for the training course?" she said, just in case the universe had undergone significant changes since her last client, and managers now took the form of pale young men with shoes that had seen better decades, or at least less sticky and corroded ones.

"Not quite," he said. "I'm here to do a study about how adversity builds teamwork skills. Didn't Dr. Sable mention..."

Mary guiltily thought of the blinking light on her ansaphone, and said hurriedly, "Oh, of course. The study. Thank you. We hope you enjoy your stay."

She gave serious consideration to the idea of asking why he was lying on the ground, gazing at spilt petrol like it was his long-lost sibling, instead of doing... whatever it was researchers did. She even got as far as forming the first syllable of the question, which was "Er."

But then he turned his hazy gaze on her, and said, dreamily, "It'll seep down, you know, until it reaches water, and then it'll spread. Dozens of delicately balanced micro-ecosystems will have been impacted this time Sunday."

Mary knew when she was beaten, largely because she'd been having so much experience in the area.

"How nice," she said. "I'm afraid I really must be going. Best of luck with your studying."

In her haste to get to her feet she almost stepped in the oil, and she stumbled out into the open lot with the soft, slick sound of his laughter ringing in her ears.

"There was someone asking for you at the gate," he shouted after her.

She changed directions.

Ten steps later, she had to struggle to remember why. The earlier parts of the conversation had already faded from her mind. Nice young man, she thought, absently.

The nice young man wiggled over hot asphalt to the next car over. He laid long fingers on its underside. "Twenty miles a gallon," he murmured. "It's like Christmas come early." And he _liked_ Christmas. It was, in fact, his favorite time of year.

(1) Like bar fights, but instead of throwing a punch and missing, you hurl your vindaloo at the server leaning out the window and by a freak convergence of winds it flies back to splatter on the windshield of the car behind you, whose driver has, incidentally, spent the last five minutes getting angrier and angrier waiting while you negotiate about the number of exciting lumps in your meal. And instead of putting away the breakable glasses, the servers just shut the window and settle back to watch.  
(2) Not for any legal reason the second time, but because one had left behind his special lucky pen, which wrote underwater.

Adam Young also liked Christmas. He'd gotten his bike for Christmas, and it was a good bike, even if Sarah said the name of the paint Mrs. Young had painstakingly coated it with to disguise the dangerous innocence-corrupting brand names was celery. _He_ knew better, anyway. Huh. He'd like to see the stalk of celery that could go to up to practically fifteen miles an hour.

Mary Hodges, staring at it, was reminded not of celery but of hospital walls, because celery had not been a regular feature of her life up until age thirty(1). She looked at its rider. She looked back at the bike. She looked at the little dog sprawled panting in the dust by the wheel. She looked at the three similar bikes sitting across the road, each manned by a small, still, watching child.

She folded her arms across her chest.

"Hi," said the boy.

"Yes?" she said. "What was it you wanted?"

He seemed to think about this.

"I was just wonderin'," he said, "who all these people are." He spread his arms to encompass the cars and, as far as she could tell, the Manor, rising above them.

"My agency-" Mary began. Then she let out a breath of air in a little huff, switched tacks, and said, "They work for Burger Lord."

The boy grinned. "You could say that," he said. "But no, I don't mean them. I mean _them._"

He nodded at something behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder, and saw Dr. Raven Sable and that nice young man whose name she couldn't recall for the life of her, huddled together, apparently in conference. And she saw Cherry Velasco, bringing her flock back out into the fresh air, and preparing to pass out the firearms.

"Them?" she said, slowly.

"Them."

"That's the man who owns Burger Lord," she said, indicating Sable. "That's my, um, gun safety expert. And that's, he's, uh, a... researcher."

"No, he isn't," said the boy, mildly.

Mary felt three additional sets of eyes slide to rest on her from all the way across the parking lot. "Oh, isn't he?" she said, irritated. "How would you know that?"

"I just do."

"I suppose you think you're being funny," she said.

"No," said the boy. "No, this isn't fun. You know this place's a hospital, right?"

"I- yes," said Mary. "I mean. It was."

"Is," said the boy, with calm certainty.

"Was," Mary snapped. "And how do _you_ know that, anyway?"

"This is where I was born," said the boy.

Mary realized her mouth was hanging open, but did not feel equipped to do anything about it. "You what?"

"Was born here. I'm Adam," he added, pushing golden curls out of his eyes.

They were not red eyes, or green eyes. They were beautiful, but only humanly: the clear straightforward blue of the summer sky.

"Oh," said Mary, quietly. "You're-"

She took a step back.

"I'm," he agreed. "But don't you worry, Ms. Hodges. Don't worry. I _remember_ you."

And Mary Hodges, formerly Loquacious, found herself unable to speak.

"None of them're who you think they are," said the Antichrist, as if from very far away. "The red and the black and the white. It's okay, though. It's not the end of the world, see?"

"I... see," she croaked. She did.

She leaned her shoulders back against the wrought-iron of the gate, because while she was all for bipedalism in a general sense, sometimes two feet just weren't enough. So much for the Chattering Order, she thought, rather giddily. So much for keeping some memories pressed down deep.

"Sorry," said Adam. "It's just, I thought you'd better know. They had their chance, and they need somewhere to rest, like everyone. But it ain't right, you having to help them and not know why."

"Thank you," she said.

"'s no big deal," he said, looking embarrassed. "It's me who should be thanking you, really."

"You were a lovely baby," she said wistfully, despite herself. "And just think, you're so _big_ now, I would never have known you if you hadn't said..."

She became aware that the Antichrist, was making a face, and stopped, horrified. But it was only an eleven-year-old boy's expression of indignation and disgust. "Grown-ups," he said, shaking his head, sadly. Mary had the grace to feel ashamed.

"It just slipped out," she said weakly.

"Yeah, yeah," said Adam, with a long-suffering sigh. "Go on, now. They're waiting for you. Tell 'em... tell 'em the coast is clear."

"Is it?" she said.

"What do _you_ think?" he said.

Across the road, in the shifting shade of an old fruit tree, the three children had moved on from stoic observation to violent bickering. The lone girl of the group, Mary noted, seemed to be in the process of improvising a slingshot from one of those pink ponytail holders with the inexplicable glass balls hanging off the edge and a forked stick.

"Not really, no," she said.

Adam said: "Tell them that, then."

Mary Hodges went back inside the Manor's gates.

She was greeted by Ms. Velasco, who looked every inch the personification of War.

"What did he say?" the woman-shaped being hissed. Famine and- Pestilence?- crowded in after her, looking strangely eager. And weak, too, under the human shapes, like newborn things.

"To watch yourselves," said Mary. She smiled at them. Cherry bristled.

"Little human, you-"

"Ah?" said Mary, lifting a finger.

There was a contemplative silence.

"I think it's good advice," Famine forced out.

"Sensible," said possibly Pestilence.

War swore in a language that had been dead for three thousand years, and stalked off to where the bemused clusters of Burger Lord employees had been milling aimlessly for the past ten minutes. "Get some lead, you soft nellies!" Mary heard her shout.

She smiled, beatifically, and left them. In her own office, she sat down at her desk, and made herself a nice, hot cup of tea.

The dash of gin she added was a very small one.

Really, she thought, she'd never felt better.

And outside the gates, the other one said to Adam, I DON'T CALL THIS VERY FAIR.

"Hmm?" said Adam, distractedly. He was looking up at the grand old building where sheer, huge, perfectly human incompetence had given him Lower Tadfield.

FIFTEEN MINUTES IN THE MINDS OF MEN, AND THEY GET A NICE CUSHY SABBATICAL. I SPEND AEONS IN L-SPACE SORTING OUT THE PAPERWORK FOR ALL THOSE DEATHS YOU UNDID WITH YOUR LITTLE HAND GESTURES, AND WHAT DO I HAVE TO SHOW FOR IT? A PAT ON THE SKULL AND A DOUBLED QUOTA, THAT'S WHAT.

"Do you _want_ a vacation?" Adam asked, a speculative glint entering his eye.

WHAT- OH, NO. NO. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN THAT.

"It was just a question," Adam said. He radiated hurt innocence. "And I hear it's lovely in Majorca, this time of year."

I WON'T FALL FOR THE SAME TRICK TWICE, YOU KNOW, said Death. I SEE WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO DO. DON'T THINK I DON'T. IT WON'T WORK. NOT ON ME.

"'Course not," said Adam, amiably.

There was a silence, broken only by the wind through the branches and the screams of Wensleydale, who had just been clipped in the nose by two small glass balls.

Death's toebones scraped against the tarmac as he shifted from foot to foot.

Adam whistled a cheery little tune.

_MAJORCA_, YOU SAY? said Death, eventually.

Adam smiled.

(1) It's not that observant Satanists can't eat vegetables, it's just that they prefer them to at least be the kind that come in grotesque shapes and vivid colors such as you might more reasonably expect to find in vertebrates than on vegetables. Also, she didn't like celery.


End file.
